


First Day of My Life

by boychik



Category: Vocaloid
Genre: Apples, F/M, Gumi - Freeform, Immortality, Love, Mortality, The Transient Apple Salesgirl, curse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 18:41:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/814742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boychik/pseuds/boychik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love is easier than he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Day of My Life

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> [ ★](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xuo0u_UK-U)  
> 

It wasn’t as though the boy had never had his doubts. Every time he passed by the girl in the marketplace with her long dark hair framing her tiny face, a part of him just wanted to stop, to speak with her, to buy an apple pie, even if he would just throw it away later. Even just to tap her on the shoulder and meet her eyes with a look that said, _You’re not the only one in this rotten town whose heart and mind haven’t been closed off by the eternal passage of time._

But he feared for the villagers, feared for the town, feared for the looks of fury and shame that would fill his mother and father’s faces when they learned of the choice he had made—and then after those emotions had passed, a patronizing, crushing pity. The same pity he had felt for the girl every day. The same look on his face and in his heart when he listened to them say: _Don’t talk to her. She’s a rotten girl, with her rotten apples. She’s not one of us. She’s going to die._

And he thought: _If she’s going to die, isn’t that all the more reason her life should be happy?_ The immortal life grew monotonous and dreary, the promise of aging without relief, each day passing not as petals falling from a mammoth flower and gliding through the cosmos but as the steady, perfunctory churn of cogs groaning in the wheel.

He became fascinated with the young salesgirl, almost obsessed. The drearily immortal villagers faded into gray specters around him, and she stood out all the more brilliantly, her coat like a beacon shining candy-apple-red. He wondered what her voice sounded like, if it was sweet as apples and honey. He began to think of apples incessantly, even when she was nowhere around. Fruit began to take on the tinge of the pink in her cheeks as she tried dutifully, futilely, to sell her wares to the immortal people who were dead at heart. They had no need of grisly apples. If they were going to live forever, why even bother with the waste of time that was eating? The gift of time had not been handed to them only for them to squander it on pleasures. 

_Her apples are the Evil Queen’s_ , his mother warned him. _Recall Snow White. A cautionary tale. They look innocent enough—more than innocent, delicious even—so delicious that you’ll want to break the crispy skin and sink your teeth into its evil juice, that bite like a bone snapping_ —and here the boy’s mouth was already watering— _but take one bite and you’re done for. It’s pure poison, and sooner or later you’ll fall down dead because of it. Kaput! You hear me? Capeesh?_

The boy couldn’t imagine a fate worse than death at the time. He promised to never eat the apples. So he wiped away the sprouts of desire from his mind the best he could and tried to stay far away from the apple vendor girl. But try as he might, her red hood and mask of a face would always catch his eye from across the market; her eyes with their bags from baking all night long would hang in that hopeful face and his heart would drop as a fruit falling from a tree. 

One day the boy made up his mind. He would talk to her. It was wrong not to. He felt in his heart that no matter what happened, if her whole life was to be a complete misery, shunned by the town, it was he who bore the burden of responsibility. _That’s ridiculous_ , his mother would have said. But that was why he must join her, before hope slipped away for the both of them. In that moment, it wasn’t difficult to throw away everything his mother had said. It was easy to walk over to her, pick up the pie from where it lay trampled in the dirt, put in in his mouth, say, _It’s delicious!_ To stare into her huge moon eyes and feel the surge of happiness and warmth that flooded his heart, was, in fact, the easiest thing he’d ever done.


End file.
